Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) -- The plow operators in Syracuse, New
York, the snowiest U.S. city, have spent much of this winter
busy with the work of warmer months: cleaning the streets.

“One good thing about the snow: A lot of times it covers
up the trash and the dirt,” Pete O’Connor, the Public Works
commissioner, said in a telephone interview. “Now, people are
calling to get the litter cleaned up. The city’s definitely
cleaner than it would be at this time.”

Syracuse had spent $525,958 on road salt by the end of
January, $500,000 less than in the same period last year and a
third of its $1.8 million annual salt budget, O’Connor said. In
an average winter, the Central New York city of 145,000 has
about 83 inches of snow by Feb. 8, according to Jack Boston, a
meteorologist with Accuweather.com in State College,
Pennsylvania. This year it had about 32 inches, he said in a
telephone interview.

From Wyoming to Vermont, state and local governments are
saving in overtime, road salt and fuel as mild weather keeps
plows parked in sheds. In the contiguous U.S., January’s average
temperature was 36.3 degrees (2.4 Celsius), 5.5 degrees above
normal, making it the fourth-warmest January on record,
Accuweather said in an e-mailed statement.

“It’s warmer this year mainly because of the jet-stream
pattern,” Michael Pigott, Accuweather senior meteorologist,
said in the statement. Storms are moving west to east, rather
than in the north-to-south pattern that sends warm air to the
Arctic and pushes cold air south, he said.

Snow Cover

On Feb. 10, snow covered 28.4 percent of the lower 48
states, the second-least for that day since records were first
kept in 2004, Carrie Olheiser of the National Operational
Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center in Chanhassen, Minnesota, said
in a telephone interview. The lowest was 25.1 percent in 2006.

Wyoming, whose average January temperature ranked among the
10th highest ever, had spent 43 percent of its $27.1 million
snow-maintenance budget by Jan. 31, said David Kingham, a
Transportation Department spokesman. In a typical year, the
state would have been about 55 percent of the way through its
budget, Kingham said.

In Hennepin County, Minnesota, the state’s most populous
because it includes Minneapolis, plow drivers are sealing cracks
in the roads, work normally reserved for spring and fall, said
Chris Sagsveen, manager of road and bridge operations. Plows
there have gone out 12 times since Jan. 1, half as often as in
the same period last year, he said in a Feb. 10 telephone
interview.

North Dakota

“Any time you don’t plow, you save in overtime costs,
material costs and fuel,” Sagsveen said.

North Dakota had spent $4.3 million of its $20.5 million
snow-plowing budget by the end of December, compared with a
four-year average of $6.1 million for that period, said Peggy
Anderson, a Transportation Department spokeswoman.

The Chicago Streets and Sanitation Department, responsible
for clearing snow from 9,500 miles (15,288 kilometers) of
streets -- the distance from the Windy City to Sydney, Australia
-- called out its plows nine times from December through
January, compared with 17 times in the same period last year,
according to Matt Smith, a department spokesman.

In December and January , Chicago used 76,000 tons of salt,
a little more than half the amount it put down in those two
months last year, he said.

Catching a Break

“We’re thankful we can catch a break from Mother Nature,”
Smith said in a Feb. 9 telephone interview. “We don’t calculate
savings until the winter is over.”

Chicago used 86,000 tons of salt during a Feb. 1, 2011,
blizzard, he said.

The Midwest and Northeast got a brief taste of winter last
weekend, with a dusting of snow in Chicago, flurries in New York
City and 4 inches in Syracuse. The temperature dip won’t likely
last, Boston said.

“We’ve gotten a few cold-air masses, but they move right
out,” he said.

The savings in Syracuse may let officials dip less deeply
into cash reserves. Fitch Ratings put a negative outlook on
$43.8 million of limited-tax general-obligation bonds in
November after the city drew down its fund balance for the
fourth consecutive year, leaving an operating deficit.

In Syracuse, one major storm can eat up $100,000 in
overtime over 10 days as moisture in the form of snow is blown
off the Great Lakes and Finger Lakes, O’Connor said. The city
gets an average of 128 inches (325.1 centimeters) a year,
according to a Weather.com analysis. It’s the snowiest U.S. city
with a population of 100,000 or more, according to the National
Snow & Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.

O’Connor said he’s counting on divine intervention to keep
the Syracuse streets dry for the rest of the winter.

“I’ve been praying as much as I can because he seems to be
listening to me and keeping the snow away,” O’Connor said.